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It's so late, it's early
Jan. 28th, 2005 05:59 amYep, pulling an all-nighter. Not because I have so much work to do, or anything, but because I've already managed to mess up my sleep cycle.
Anyway, I was just lounging on the couch reading an article for my class in a few hours, and Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" rolled through my playlist. I was intrigued by my emotional reaction. Just in case somebody doesn't know the song, a quick outline: it's a 60s protest song, one of the better of its genre IMHO. It mostly considers the attitude of paranoia at the time of its writing (1966), with minor notes on the inefficacy of protest/polarization of opinion (depends on how you interpret "A thousand people in the street / Singing songs and carrying signs / Mostly say, Hooray for our side"), and calls for awareness of the situation.
It's not exactly happiness and sunshine. Indeed, it's somewhat foreboding. So I find it rather intriguing that when I hear this song I don't think of paranoia, nor of danger and warnings. Instead, I'm drawn into a conception of the idyllic, of childhoods past and simpler times cherished. I'm perfectly aware of the reasons behind this incongruity, which largely boil down to the fact that I'm separated from the reality of the text by a generation. I didn't live through the Vietnam era, so its difficulties and pressures only exist for me academically. Instead, my main receipt of the Zeitgeist is shaped by an idealized version of the counter-culture, summer-of-love trope, which is in turn colored by my own childhood 20 years later, for which 60s music was the majority of the soundtrack. These songs, removed from their original context, in my case merely point back to my rather insulated childhood of the 80s, without the presence of war and fear (that had to wait for Desert Shield/Storm), tinged with TV/movie representations of the peace-loving hippies and their 'grooviness'.
The above is what happens when you train people in literary analysis, they start doing it automatically, even applying it to their own thought processes. And to think, I'm merely a neophyte in this [honestly, an undergrad degree is not adequate intro to the whims and caprices of critical theory] -- think how frightening I'll eventually become.
PS: Points for correct identification of the reference in the mood. Double points for explaining what it means.
Anyway, I was just lounging on the couch reading an article for my class in a few hours, and Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" rolled through my playlist. I was intrigued by my emotional reaction. Just in case somebody doesn't know the song, a quick outline: it's a 60s protest song, one of the better of its genre IMHO. It mostly considers the attitude of paranoia at the time of its writing (1966), with minor notes on the inefficacy of protest/polarization of opinion (depends on how you interpret "A thousand people in the street / Singing songs and carrying signs / Mostly say, Hooray for our side"), and calls for awareness of the situation.
It's not exactly happiness and sunshine. Indeed, it's somewhat foreboding. So I find it rather intriguing that when I hear this song I don't think of paranoia, nor of danger and warnings. Instead, I'm drawn into a conception of the idyllic, of childhoods past and simpler times cherished. I'm perfectly aware of the reasons behind this incongruity, which largely boil down to the fact that I'm separated from the reality of the text by a generation. I didn't live through the Vietnam era, so its difficulties and pressures only exist for me academically. Instead, my main receipt of the Zeitgeist is shaped by an idealized version of the counter-culture, summer-of-love trope, which is in turn colored by my own childhood 20 years later, for which 60s music was the majority of the soundtrack. These songs, removed from their original context, in my case merely point back to my rather insulated childhood of the 80s, without the presence of war and fear (that had to wait for Desert Shield/Storm), tinged with TV/movie representations of the peace-loving hippies and their 'grooviness'.
The above is what happens when you train people in literary analysis, they start doing it automatically, even applying it to their own thought processes. And to think, I'm merely a neophyte in this [honestly, an undergrad degree is not adequate intro to the whims and caprices of critical theory] -- think how frightening I'll eventually become.
PS: Points for correct identification of the reference in the mood. Double points for explaining what it means.
